


your lover's angel

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Everyone Is Alive, F/M, It's a good au, POV Lance (Voltron), Romantic Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, allura is surveilling earth, ask me about it and i might find it in me to regurgitate my ideas, but the fall of altea never happened, i like it a lot, soulmates don't get married right away do they? no, technically? this au i've concocted is complex, the galra are still evil and zarkon is still a bad person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 14:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15221249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She is overwhelming, and yet Lance cannot look away.How could he be thesoulmateof this perfect alien princess? How could he have known what worlds laid beyond his own?





	1. Mint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vantas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vantas/gifts).



> @ the people who are reading this: I'm giving you this fluff TODAY to APOLOGIZE in ADVANCE for the thing I will post TOMORROW.
> 
> Come see what I post tomorrow.

Here’s a fact. The way sunset fades over the mountain, the way the seagulls break into song, the way ice cream melts on your tongue and into your hand—none of that has anything on the way Allura looks when she wakes up in the morning with her hair untamed and her ears still pointed. Lance wants to smooth back her hair and rub the pink crescents under her eyes before they disappear, but Allura rolls out of bed in one smooth motion before Lance can even whisper “Good morning.”

 

He sits up as Allura pulls together an outfit from the clothes scattered on their floor, born from the week of her living in his bedroom in secret. He’s spent so much money on her, but he doesn’t mind; he has a job, and his soulmate would like to walk around Earth in clothes that suit this world. 

 

“Morning,” he says. Allura perks up, then smiles at him. 

 

“I didn’t know you were awake,” she whispers, then pulls the curtains open so golden sunlight spills into their bedroom. “Good morning, Lance.”

 

Lance smiles at her, like a dope. “Already getting ready? I don’t have to be at work for another—” he rolls to look at his bedside alarm clock— “two hours.”

 

“I thought we could go shopping,” Allura says. “I was going to get a mango for breakfast, and I still don’t have a swimsuit even though you really want to go swimming—”

 

“You can borrow one of my sister’s,” Lance says, rolling out of bed. No reason to stay in bed when Allura isn’t in it. “She wouldn’t mind.”

 

“I couldn’t, I’ve borrowed so much from her already.” She slips a peasant blouse over her head and fixes the waist so that it poofs out over the top of her shorts. “Besides, I would like to see a mall before I check in for the movement. The one you have is so shiny.”

 

Lance yawns. “If you want. You know, you could always get a job. You’d really get a feeling of Earth life then.”

 

“I already have a job. I’m surveilling this planet for archival purposes. You know this.”

 

“I mean an Earth job,” Lance says, pulling his closet open. He sniffs a Billabong shirt hanging there before pulling it on. “I know you have your alien job, but you could get a salary that means something in Earth economic systems so I don’t have to pay for you all the time.”

 

Allura grabs a hairbrush from Lance’s vanity and starts combing her hair, a process that could take her hours unless Lance squirts some water and gets the back for her. “I could disguise my currency as your currency.”

 

“That’s cheating.”

 

“A singular piece of mine is worth seven of yours. It’s a gain for the businesses here, really.”

 

Lance finds board shorts and a snapback that matches the cinch bag he’s decided to carry around. He thinks he looks good. Allura would tell him that he needs to wear something other than tube socks with that.  “It would be, if those people knew the value of what you were giving them.”

 

“Maybe they will. I’ll be done in a phoeb or two, and when I give my report to my father, we will come and make contact with the governments of this planet, hopefully promoting economic connections between our cultures.”

 

“And the Galra?”

 

Allura stiffens. “They might not never know you’re an inhabited planet if you use our technology. We’ve saved tons of planets with our planet-wide shields.”

 

“How many?”

 

Allura sets the hairbrush down. “Four. Five, if you accept our help.”

 

“We really need to watch alien invasion movies with you,” Lance murmurs. He picks up the hairbrush and the spray bottle and starts on Allura’s hair. “District Nine. Independence Day. Pacific Rim. I know you’re good aliens, but some people won’t see it like that. They might think you’re here to steal our resources and eat our babies.”

 

Allura groaned. “No, this planet has way too many resources for even five, ten Altea’s. You have such a large population that it’s a wonder you haven’t crashed under your own weight. I know you think I shouldn’t reveal our presence, but if the Galra come, they will destroy you.”

 

“I know, I know,” Lance says. The hairbrush is caught on a knot, so he grabs the comb and tries to yank through it. Allura winces. “Sorry. I want you to come down and announce aliens exist to the world, I really do. I’m just afraid for you, and of what the governments will do to you. Americans are so caught up in Area 51 that I’m starting to think it’s real.”

 

“That’s the one with the Intenums? The little gray men?” Allura asks. “They don’t mean any real harm. They think this planet belongs to them, and they show off your cows to make a point. We had to strike a treaty with them to get access here.”

 

Lance’s hands pause. “They’re real?”

 

Allura nods. “As is Area 51. They are so mad about that.”

 

“Jesus,” Lance says, tinged with awe. “I would tell Hunk, but I’m not sure how to tell him…”  _ that you exist, _ he wants to continue, but how could he say that? “That aliens are real,” he concludes lamely, instead. 

 

“Don’t you have work soon?” Allura asks. Lance hisses a curse and resumes combing through Allura’s hair. 

 

“We can go shopping after my shift,” Lance says. “Remember food costs money this time. Please.”

 

Allura laughs softly. Lance’s hands still on her glowing white hair, a golden yellow in the sunlight. She is a sunrise is Lance’s hands. “No promises.”

 

* * *

 

Lance helps in the record store, which mostly consists of unpacking boxes of CDs and rifling through pins to put on the corkboard near the register. Everything’s near the register, though. It’s a small store. 

 

He sits and plays music over the speakers; soft Green Day and The Cure. It attracts tourists with the English lyrics and the punk kids who only come out at night or near the end of Lance’s shift. He doesn’t know if they go to the local school or not. He doesn’t think they exist outside of the shadowy night. 

 

His shift goes by quickly—he sells lots of pins and has to put up more from the back—and he is able to finish and join Allura before the afternoon is halfway close to finishing. 

 

She’s sitting on a bench surrounding a tree near the end of the boardwalk, reading a book, wearing her peasant blouse and jean shorts from that morning. She is something resplendent in the shade, the cool colors dancing on her face as the ocean breeze pushes and pulls the leaves above her. 

 

Lance touches the mark on his forearm and smiles. How incredibly lucky he is. 

 

“Hey,” he says, waving and catching Allura’s attention. “What are you reading?”

 

She closes the book as he sits down. “The woman at the bookstore called it a classic. I’m finding it quite exciting, actually.”

 

Lance peeks at the cover. “Wuthering Heights? You’re liking that?”

 

“Sure,” Allura says. “Though it is not in Spanish. I had to reset the translators to analyze the language. It’s so difficult.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Lance moans, leaning back on the bench, wrapping an arm around Allura’s shoulders. “I had to learn it in school. None of the grammar makes sense.”

 

“I will still have to learn it,” Allura says with conviction. “Anyway, shall we go? I’ve been reading for ages.”

 

Lance stands and offers his hand to Allura. For a moment, he can see the soulmark on her forearm as well, when she takes his hand. Her smile is wide and shining. 

 

“Let’s find something sparkly,” she says, her smile turning into a mischievous grin. Before Lance can protest, she pulls him along, and he laughs from her infectious enthusiasm. 

 

* * *

 

“How about this one,” Allura says, holding up a leotard with blue stars. 

 

“That’s not even a swimsuit,” Lance points out. 

 

“But it’s sparkly.”

 

“It’s not made to be underwater for hours at a time.”

 

Allura pouts, but puts the leotard back. 

 

They wander over to the actual swimsuit section, where Allura’s attention is caught by a one piece, dark blue with a design of circles like a long-exposure picture of the stars at night. There are small sparkles scattered on the fabric, and Allura loves it. 

 

“I thought you’d be a bikini person, but okay,” Lance says. 

 

Allura points out it looks like the dark blue swim trunks he already has at home. He thinks of them looking like a couple, him with such an ethereally beautiful alien princess, and he flushes so hard Allura gets concerned. They’re a  _ couple.  _ They’re more than that, they’re soulmates, they are a forever pair, they are the alien queen and helpless romantic that belongs on the cover of one of his mama’s torrid romance novels. 

 

“I love you,” Lance says suddenly, so sudden that it surprises even him. He finds, however, that it’s true. He loves this miraculous creature. 

 

“Let’s get ice cream,” he says. 

 

* * *

 

Allura is stunned at the frozen flavors and orders four different scoops. Lance smiles at the person behind the counter, trying to be reassuring. He gets himself two scoops of raspberry. He likes the fruity flavors. 

 

They sit outside on another circular bench, under the shade of another tree. Allura’s new swimsuit is in a bag tucked between her feet, and she attacks her ice cream with relish. They made her get it in a cup because a cone wouldn’t hold it all. 

 

Lance, feigning dignity, licks at his raspberry ice cream, on a cone. “Liking it?” he asks, when his mouth isn’t full. 

 

Allura nods vigorously. “Yes, so much. I never knew that you could have such cold things in summer.”

 

Lance grins and laughs and wraps his arm around her. “I think I love you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Double Fudge

The pool is closed on Sundays, but the ocean is always open. It was one of the first places Lance took Allura when she first wandered into his life, and they have gone almost every day since. Lance accidentally told his mother that they met there; he doesn’t yet have the heart to correct himself. 

 

He likes the way the light sparkles on the tips of the waves; how it smells clean and pure. He likes the way the wind pulls Allura’s hair back. He likes the way her lips curl back in a smile when she feels the sand between her toes. 

 

They’re up on the pier today, and Lance is watching the way the water sparkles in a triangle originating at the sun. Allura wears her new swimsuit, and she’s right; it does match his swim trunks. Lance loves doing these ridiculous sappy love things with Allura. God, how he loves this girl.

 

“We don’t have anything like this on Altea,” Allura murmurs. Lance looks at her out of the corner of her eye; the afternoon sun highlights the freckles on her cheeks where her alien marks are hidden, the soft edges of her chin and nose. He reaches out and cups his hand around her face, rubs his thumb over her marks. 

 

“I mean, we had oceans,” Allura continues, letting Lance touch her gently. “They were purple, if you can believe it. But I really only saw them from the rings. They never sparkled like….” As she drifts off, she gestures at Earth’s blue ocean. It speaks for itself. 

 

Lance thinks of how ancient it is. The birthplace of gods and humanity, where all life originated from. How many people sailed that wide expanse? How many were lost? How many were  _ found _ out there? 

 

“It’s beautiful,” Allura says, crossing her arms on the pier’s handrail and leaning as far as allowed. 

 

“It is,” Lance murmurs, running his hand through Allura’s length of hair before dropping it to his side. 

 

They stand there and watch for a little while longer. The ocean is so mesmerizing, in its way; continuously moving through currents and eddies. Swirling. Dancing. 

 

Leonardo da Vinci watched Lake Geneva at the spot where it became the Rhône river, staying there for hours at a time, seeing how the water swirled and curled around itself. The hair he drew was a product of that studying, natural and gentle curls that seem to float. What da Vinci would give to study Allura’s hair. Lance is  _ so  _ lucky. 

 

Lance runs his hand through Allura’s hair again and again, thinking of nothing and everything all at once. Everything about her is soft. 

 

In the corner of his vision, he sees Allura get a mischievous grin; one that he  _ knows.  _ Immediately, he backs up a step, his own grin making its way to his face. “Oh,  _ no.  _ No, no, no.”

 

If anything, Allura’s grin gets wider, and she stalks towards him as Lance would imagine a lioness stalks her prey. “Say,” she says, way too jovial for this, “no use being in swimsuits if we’re just going to stand around  _ dry  _ in them.”

 

_ “Do not you dare—” _

 

Allura rushes in and scoops Lance up. Lance shouts in surprised laughter as she lifts him above her head. He’s curled up like he always imagined Franz Kafka imagined his Metamorphosis. 

 

“Wait!” he says. “Do I even weigh anything to you?”

 

Allura’s arm muscles are barely shaking. “Not really. It’s like holding a bundle of jay leaves.”

 

Lance pauses at the mention of the alien plant. “Are those heavy?”

 

“Not at all,” Allura says, and tosses him into the water. 

 

There’s a brief moment of falling—the world rushing past his ears, and the air pushing his hair up; he’s going too fast to realize he’s screaming—before he hits the water with a smack and a splash. 

 

Immediately, all sounds disappear; it’s only him, and the deep blue sea. 

 

Bubbles swirl around him in a rush to escape to surface. Lance unbends himself, and though he hasn’t sunk very far, he pushes himself up with two powerful strokes. Now that he’s in the water, he doesn’t want to leave. It’s a little on the side of cold, but that’s perfect for the hot summer day. All this is perfect. 

 

He breaks the surface of the ocean and gasps, whipping his head around in a vain attempt to be less wet. Allura’s still on the pier. He waves up at her. She waves back, and enthusiastically gestures for him to back off. Lance flips into an easy backstroke and waits for Allura to do whatever magic she does. 

 

She climbs over the railing, and Lance’s heart is in his throat; she jumps off, fearless, and it takes forever for her to reach the water. In that forever moment, her hair is streaming behind her, and her arms are spread out wide like an angel. 

 

She hits the water with a grand splash, and it is  _ fantastic.  _ Lance is splashed with water and loves every second of it. 

 

He retaliates in turn when Allura resurfaces, the pink moons on her cheeks and her smile filled with shark fangs appearing for a moment; it melts away like water when Lance splashes her. She shrieks as if she’s not covered in water already, and they fight in the turquoise water underneath the pier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Cherry Amaretto

“Okay, you’ve actually got to wear a bikini for this one,” Lance says. 

 

“Bullshit,” Allura replies. “As you would say.”

 

“You caught me,” Lance says, giving up easily. He raises his hands in surrender and grins when Allura punches his shoulder. 

 

“I think we should do it,” Allura says. “How hard can it be? We would totally dominate the competition if we tried.”

 

Lance looks down at the players on the beach. They’re good—focused, strong, and communicative. One of them dives towards the sand in an effort to bump the ball. 

 

“Do you even know how to play volleyball?” Lance asks. 

 

“I would learn quickly,” Allura says to that. “I always learn games quickly.”

 

“Why don’t I show you the basics before we go for a real game?” Lance suggests. He doesn’t want Allura to be disappointed if she fails.

 

“Alright,” Allura says, almost begrudging before she turns to Lance with a brilliant smile. 

 

* * *

 

She needs to be lower. 

 

“You need to squat more,” Lance says. He demonstrates, maybe pushing his butt out a little more than necessary. He has a nice butt, so what? He wants Allura to notice it. 

 

Allura lowers herself a little more, hands loose in front of her. God  _ damn  _ could those thighs crush watermelons, or Lance’s head as he mutters a pathetic ‘thank you.’ 

 

“Like this?”

 

“Yes, perfect,” Lance says, his voice weak and trembling. 

 

“So what now?” Heaven’s name, she’s  _ clueless.  _ Lance thinks he’s in love. 

 

“Bumping,” Lance says. “I’m a good setter, so I can go in the front—”  _ so you can look at the butt I’ve spent hours working on,  _ he doesn’t say— “while you go in the back. So what you want to do—”

 

They spend time working on arm strength and direction and the delicate skin of Allura’s forearm getting red and itchy, and by the time they’ve resolved their latest argument about the sport (“I am saying, Lance, that my alien physiology and short stature  _ do not  _ comply with your ideas of what my body can do!” “Then shapeshift taller!”), the sun is setting on the horizon behind the island. 

 

Allura sighs. She tosses the volleyball up in the air, giving it a short spin, and catches it deftly. 

 

Lance forgets what they were arguing about. In the light of the setting sun, Allura is gloriously determined; she shufs the ball around in her hands a couple times before sitting down on the sandy beach. Lance joins her, spreading his legs out as opposed to Allura’s criss-cross. 

 

“I had fun today,” Allura says softly. The waves almost wash over her words, but Lance always listens to her, above anyone or anything else in the entire world. 

 

“And tomorrow,” she continues, her voice gaining confidence and depth, “we are going to  _ crush  _ the tournament.”

 

Okay. So maybe it was a mistake to tell her about the bi-weekly volleyball tournament that Lance has always needed a partner for. 

 

* * *

 

They’re knocked out in the semifinals, but they worked like a dream. 

 

Allura is smiling wide and pure, and barrels into Lance with a bone-crushing hug, even though they lost. “That was  _ so fun.” _

 

Lance laughs, wraps his arms around her shoulders; she’s easy to pick up a couple inches and swing around. He doesn’t work out for nothing, you know. She yelps and laughs with glee. 

 

Lance sets her down and buries his nose in her sweaty hair. She still smells faintly of the fruity shampoo Lance uses. 

 

“I love you,” Lance murmurs. He pecks her forehead (still sweaty) and they walk away from the beach hand in hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They compete again and again until they win, but that is a story for another time.


	4. Coffee

Lance had studied his soulmark before. Of course he had. 

 

It moved constantly. He’d heard of static still ones and ones that moved so fast they vibrated the marked one’s arm. Lance’s was ordinary in that aspect; it softly swirled and drifted back and forth to a rhythm only it knew. 

 

His was more abstract than others. It could be space, perhaps; or it was a group of random scribbles that maybe one day his future child would draw for him.  _ God.  _ He can’t even comprehend the love he has for his future kid (kids?), and he’s not even a parent yet. He’s nowhere close to being a parent. 

 

He’s studying his mark in the dim light of his shared bedroom, tilting his arm this way and that, twisting to see if he could get a different perspective. 

 

It wasn’t like a painting, like most people’s were. His soulmark looked like someone had hollowed out his right forearm and put stardust where the bones and muscle should be. It shone softly, always. His mother called it his little nightlight when it first developed, even though he was like ten and didn’t need nightlights anyway,  _ Mom.  _

 

“Well, of course you don’t, mijo,” she’d said. “Your arm is glowing! You’ll never need a nightlight ever again.”

 

If he looks at it for too long in the dark, it began to hurt his eyes. He shuffles deeper into the covers and hides his arm under his pillow, cutting the light in the room down by half. 

 

Allura shifts beside him, rolling over to one side, then the other, the sheets tangling around her legs. Lance reaches out a gentle hand to touch her forehead. She’s sweating. 

 

She rolls away from his touch, not seeming to notice it; it’s almost like a tortured, anguished dance she does as she twists around their bed. 

 

She wakes with a startled breath, so loud in their quiet room. She doesn’t seem to know that Lance is awake, or, as always when his eyes are open, that he’s looking at her. 

 

Quietly, she sits up on the edge of their bed, holding her head in one hand. Lance wants so badly to touch her and tell her that everything’s going to be okay, but she gets up and pads out of their room before he can do anything. 

 

She leaves a cold and empty space behind her. Lance can only handle it for a minute before he gets up himself. 

 

Allura’s in the amber glow of the kitchen, heating milk on the stove. She’s wrapped herself in a long cardigan Lance’s sister left behind (Ronnie was  _ always  _ leaving clothes behind, even before Allura came). 

 

“Hey,” Lance murmurs. 

 

Allura looks up. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“You didn’t,” Lance reassures her, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “Was already up. Thinking.”

 

“About what?”

 

“Stuff,” Lance says, “and things.”  _ You.  _

 

Allura hums and wraps the cardigan tighter around herself. The milk suffers under her stare. 

 

“Nightmare?” Lance asks. 

 

“How’d you know?”

 

“Saw you having it. Sorry I didn’t wake you.”

 

“Don’t worry about it.”

 

There’s a beat. 

 

“I think the milk is ready,” Allura says. “Want some?”

 

“Nah,” Lance says, but he’s thinking. “Do you… want to see something cool?”

 

“Sure,” she says, and Lance knows she’s deeply affected by whatever the hell this is, because she doesn’t even ask why. 

 

“Come with me, then,” he says, reaching over to turn the stove off and pour some of the milk into a tall glass. “Rooftop.”

 

Allura follows the milk more than she follows Lance, which is fine as he grabs the keys and locks his apartment; he gives her the milk as they climb up the rickety staircase to the roof. 

 

It isn’t the tallest building in Varadero, but it’s tall enough and close enough to the outskirts of town that they can see both the ocean and the fields outside the city. 

 

It’s cold, and Lance is intimately reminded of how he sleeps shirtless. Allura opens one part of her cardigan, inviting Lance to dive into her warm side, which he does with relief. It’s a large cardigan. 

 

“What did you want to show me?” Allura asks. Lance smiles at her and wraps his arms around her underneath their cardigan. 

 

“There’s supposed to be a meteor storm tonight,” Lance murmurs. “Look up.”

 

He’d noticed the first white streak in the kitchen. He kept the rouladens cracked and the windows slightly open, because it’s so hot in Cuba (and humid, but living next to the ocean means he gets ocean breezes), and he’d do anything for air conditioning except for actually pay for it. As such, he saw the meteor’s light, and knew there would be more on the way. 

 

Allura looks up. 

 

The sky is an explosion of a riot. Molotov cocktails with brilliant blue flames are thrown in slow motion. White sparks of the fire flutter around the spirit of a protest. It is a modern revolution spattered across the black envelope of the night sky, and it is beautiful. 

 

Allura’s eyes sparkle in the light. It is a more marvelous sight than the splendor around them. 

 

“It is wondrous,” Allura says. 

 

“I’m glad you’re here to see it,” Lance replies. 

 

“Earth is a beautiful place.”

 

“More so with you on it,” Lance shoots back. 

 

Allura laughs and extracts her arm from their cardigan that should really be reclassified as a blanket (how could Ronnie  _ stand  _ being in something so warm and enveloping when they lived in one of the hottest countries on the planet?) to touch Lance’s face. Her hands are soft, and her fingers are longer than any humans. Lance chalks it up to being alien. 

 

He can see the soulmark on her forearm. He didn’t know aliens even  _ had  _ soulmarks, had never given it a thought before he met his very own alien queen (princess, technically). Of course they would. They’re not human, these Alteans, but they’re people. They’re equal. 

 

Allura’s soulmark is like Lance’s own, a hollowed out forearm, but where his is filled with stars and planets, hers is an ever-shifting conglomeration of diamonds in a deep, dark space. Lance wonders if it is underground, or if it is the night sky. 

 

Like her, it is beyond words in its beauty, and he loves it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl i think this is my favorite chapter. except I also like the next chapter. does this count as angst?


	5. Mango

Lance’s family all loves mango, even Izzie, who’s too young to appreciate the bright flavor or sweet texture. When asked why she loves it so much, she picks up a crayon that’s lying around her and shouts,  _ “Color!” _

 

Allura thinks it’s adorable. 

 

They’re all at his Tía’s house for their annual family reunion. Lance is proud to have a girlfriend to show off, finally. At least his brothers and cousins won’t tease him about his soulmate. People usually meet them in high school or college, after all, and though Lance isn’t too far beyond those years, he is beyond those years. 

 

“Worth the wait,” Jorge the cousin mutters in Lance’s ear when he sees Allura. 

 

“This is Allie,” Lance says to everyone Allura meets. “She’s here to study abroad for her master’s.”

 

“What’s she studying?” Tío Roberto asks. 

 

“What college is she from?” Lance’s older cousin asks, the one with the wife and two children already in high school. 

 

“How’d you meet?” Lance’s grandmother asks. She’s the hopeless romantic of the family and religiously catalogues the family’s soulmarks in case it’s genetic. She says she’s onto something, and talks Allura’s ears off about it. 

 

Lance feeds them all lies. Later, when aliens are revealed with Allura as their princess, his family will act betrayed that he didn’t tell any of them, but they’ll be more excited than angry. 

 

It’s a mango festival more than a family reunion. They even swap stories about mangoes they’ve eaten previously.  _ Mangoes.  _ Lance wishes he was kidding. 

 

Allura stays close to his side through the whole thing. She told him once that she was trained for diplomacy, and Lance can see it now; she glides through the party and makes everyone seem like they’re important to her. By the end of the day it seems as if she has twenty new contacts and Ronnie’s promise to get all the girls together to hang out sometimes. 

 

But the party is trickling off now, with everyone gathering their immediates and driving away in their old, ancient cars; as it gets dark, they light up their headlights and illuminate the winding beach road with twilight shadows. 

 

Tía Lira is a spinster with a massive house on a private beach. Lance loved visiting when he was younger; he’d spend hours down at the seashore with his siblings and cousins. Now they were sharing beers and watching their own children and nephews and nieces laugh and play. It was sort of bittersweet. 

 

“Stay the night,” Tía Lira said as Lance and Allura watched the last of the cars drive away. “Spend some time with this old woman. This house is too big for me alone.”

 

Lance looks at Allura, just to make sure. She nods. 

 

The three of them sit on the back porch, the one facing the ocean, and watch the water glimmer in the fading twilight. 

 

“It’s magic hour,” Tía Lira says. She’s buried in blankets and pillows, decorated in faded tie-dye colors and India ink prints. Lance has some himself, as does Allura; it’s obvious that they’re well-used. They’re soft and worn, and Allura scrunches up next to Lance underneath them. 

 

“Magic hour?” Allura asks. 

 

“When the border between worlds is blurred,” Tía explains. “Anything can happen. It’s said that ninety percent of soulmates find each other during the magic hour.”

 

“Not you, though,” Lance says. 

 

“Not me. I never found my soulmate, but… I like to think he’s out there somewhere, waiting for me.”

 

They’re quiet after that, listening to the waves crash over each other, desperate to reach the shore. It’s an endless race for a meaningless goal, but it makes for a beautiful sound. 

 

Tía Lira yawns and stretches and says, “Alright, I should go to bed before I fall asleep out here. Don’t be too rowdy, young ones, but I wouldn’t be able to hear you anyway.”

 

Lance and Allura grin at her. She disappears into the house with an exchange of ‘good night’s and a blanket around her shoulders. 

 

She leaves a quiet behind her, still unbroken as Lance and Allura watch the last dredges of sunlight disappear from the earth. They can see the world, but only in slivers from the artificial light coming from the house. 

 

“You want to build a sandcastle?” Lance asks suddenly. 

 

Allura laughs at the spontaneity. “Do I want to  _ what?” _

 

“Build a sandcastle? It’ll be fun, and I’ve never made one while it’s dark out.”

 

Allura grins. “Sure. Of  _ course,  _ you incredible man.”

 

They scramble down to the shore, leaving their blankets behind. It’s cold, but they have each other for warmth. 

 

Lance’s first attempt is a pile of sand with a shell on top, pretending to be a flag. He’s ridiculously proud of it. 

 

“Wonderful,” Allura says. She takes one of Lance’s hands that’s coated in fine particles. “But I can do you one better.”

 

She reaches over to kiss him on the cheek. It leaves a warm spot that he reaches up to touch with his sandy fingers, not even noticing that Allura’s let go of his hand, or that he’s getting sand on his face. 

 

Allura pokes her tongue out and flexes her fingers; with a look of determination, she’s easily the most ethereal being Lance has ever seen. She lets her markings show again, and her ears slowly become more pointed. Lance thinks she looks more like an elf than an alien. 

 

Slowly, her hands glow a light blue, and tiny balls of light form and fade away inches from her fingers. Lance, technically,  _ knew  _ that Allura could do magic. She’d told him of the things she’d accomplished and her roles in advancing Altean technology. 

 

Yet this is the first time he’s actually seen her do it. He cannot look away. 

 

The pile of sand that Lance had tried to pass off as a castle glows the same color as Allura’s hands. She wiggles her fingers around, as the sand streams up and splits into different ribbons; she orchestrates a glowing dance in the dark, letting the streams of sand flow around and through each other. She is Arachne at the loom, creating a mystical sculpture only she knows the answer to; she dances to a beat only she can hear, and Lance is content to be her observer. 

 

She is done in a heartbeat—where there was a mess of shifting sand before, there is now a floating castle made of sand. It is obvious what it is, though it looks like no castle Lance has ever seen on Earth. There are minarets spiraling out in all directions and corridors weaving around each other, massive gardens that hang above the top of the tallest minaret, with gentle staircases spiralling between it all. 

 

“My home,” Allura says, holding the castle in place. “It hangs on top of a field of juniper flowers in the Morain Valley. I… I miss it.”

 

“It’s beautiful,” Lance says, because it is. 

 

“I miss Altea,” Allura says. “I’ve been travelling in space for so long that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like, but… I could never forget.”

 

They watch the castle spin for a while. Every particle of sand rotates around its own axis, even the ones in the staircases, where the lines are so faint that they are made of a single strand of the tiniest particles in the entire sculpture. 

 

“I’d miss Earth, too, if I ever had to leave,” Lance says. “I’d miss the ocean, and the rain; all the Earth food, especially the mangoes. And my family. I would miss them  _ so,  _ so much.”

 

“I love you too,” Allura says. 

 

“What?”

 

“I love you. You’ve said it to me so much, and—I love you, too, so much.”

 

“I…”

 

“No,” Allura says, “you don’t have to say anything. Just understand how much I love you. So much that I feel it will cripple me one day. Lance… I miss Altea more than words can describe, but I find myself choosing you, again and again, to be with when I ask myself to choose between you and there.”

 

Lance’s heart turns in his chest. 

 

“I don’t ever want to leave you behind,” she finishes. 

 

“I love you too,” he says. 

 

The sand castle drops from Allura’s magic to become a pile of sand once more. She surges up to kiss him—Lance understands the desperation of the ocean to reach the shore, now. 

 

It is an endless race for a meaningless goal, their kiss, but it makes for something beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tía Lira's soulmate is Altean.


	6. Maikiki Melon

_ The Aliens Have Landed! _

 

The record store seemed to attract these conspiracy papers, in all languages, like moths to a flame. Lance didn’t get it. Music people didn’t believe in conspiracies (the moon landing was  _ not  _ faked, come on, guys) any more than non-music people. 

 

_ The Aliens Have Landed! _ If you read it enough, maybe it’ll mean nothing, like when you say words too much and they become a tangle of syllables with nothing to them. 

 

Like  _ soulmate.  _ Lance tried to forget that one a lot.  _ Soulmate. Soulmate. Soulmate.  _

 

He’d probably never meet his. It happened sometimes, to people who were that unlucky, who never went to search for their partner; his Tía was one of them, his childhood friend another. 

 

_ The Aliens Have Landed! _

 

Lance moved the stack of papers from the register to the table underneath the pins and flipped them facedown. 

 

The bell above the door jingled. Lance spared a brief look at whoever came in, praying they’d saw  _ no  _ or  _ just browsing  _ when he said “Hi there, can I help you?”

 

“I think you can,” the whoever said. Lance had never heard Spanish being spoken in a British accent, and so  _ well,  _ but first time for everything. The whoever must be a tourist. One that took a Spanish class. 

 

Lance fixed the rest of the pamphlets of the table before turning to say, “What can I—”

 

Their eyes met. The world around them fell away. 

 

Lance had seen pictures of salt flats that were so smooth and still that they reflected the sky. The people that stood there looked so small and insignificant—but the world he was in now looked like those salt flats, and he realized that being there made him feel like the most important person in the world. And  _ her.  _

 

The world surrounded Lance with a sky as black as pitch, the air dotted with diamonds that shone from some light that Lance couldn’t see. They floated gently around him. He gently touched one close to him, making all of them float gently past him. 

 

The girl was there too, looking around with wonder. A diamond floated past her eyes, and Lance could see a galaxy reflected in them. 

 

As quickly as it erupted around them, the world Lance found himself vanished, leaving him and the girl in his record store, feeling as if the floor had fallen out from under him. 

 

“Help you with,” Lance finished, the words falling from his lips in a whisper. “Oh. Oh my God.”

 

“Was that—are you—”

 

“Are we—”

 

“Soulmates?” they said together. 

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

**END**

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading comments/kudos are always appreciated come see my [writing blog](https://spinstersgrave.tumblr.com/) this was written for the [Summer Allurance Exchange](https://vldexchange.tumblr.com/) event that is on Tumblr (just like my writing blog waow) as a gift for [Kyuu (a.k.a. Carcinology)](http://carcinology.tumblr.com/) whomst has an ao3 unlike the last few people I've gifted to huzzah I am Lonely I am Tired I am Gay come talk to me ok spiel over I am finished and I Love Allurance!!!!
> 
> I wanted this to be like little scoops of ice cream, so the titles are ice cream flavors—the +1 is an alien fruit I made up.


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